Free Thinking - Mystics and Reality: Joanna Kavenna, Dorothy Cross, Jo Dunkley, New Generation Thinker Edmund Richardson.

Artist Dorothy Cross, author Joanna Kavenna, the cosmologist Jo Dunkley and our second 2016 New Generation Thinker historian Edmund Richardson from Durham University join Matthew Sweet for a programme recorded in Oxford exploring mysticism and its role in a timeless search for reality.

Joanna Kavenna's novel A Field Guide to Reality is published at the end of June.

Dorothy Cross is displaying art as part of Mystics and Rationalists - it runs from June 11th to August 7th as part of the Kaleidoscope series celebrating 50 years of Modern Art Oxford.

Edmund Richardson has published Classical Victorians: Scholars, Scoundrels & Generals in Pursuit of Antiquity.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio programmes. Find out more from our website and hear them introducing their research in the programme which broadcast on May 31st - available as an arts and ideas podcast.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith